


I Don't Know Why You Say Goodbye

by Diminua



Series: I'll Try Not to Sing Out of Key [2]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe (just one step sideways), F/M, M/M, Might be some spoilers but more likely simply won't make as much sense.., eventually there will be kissing at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-05 17:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5384387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diminua/pseuds/Diminua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>This chapter has spoilers for Hell Bent, although still of the it-won't-make-sense sort. Oh and a lot more talking than I expected.</p>
          </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He felt well. That was the first, strange, observation. That his body felt easy, his head light. He wondered if he had been ill, that he was so suddenly conscious of his own wellbeing.

There was a sense of residual warmth as well, as though someone had been embracing him, but it was elusive and possibly imaginary and didn’t seem to matter much when he felt so comfortable. It seemed almost appropriate in fact. Perfectly reasonable.

Lastly, there was a faint susurrus of fabric, footsteps close by his ear, but even this couldn’t bother him, although he didn't remember why he was laying on the floor.

‘Open your eyes Doctor.’ 

Since that was what he had intended to do next anyway, the Doctor obeyed.

The face of the man looking down at him fitted well with the imperious voice, and the dark robe he wore was mysterious, if tatty, but the expression – caution and perhaps even some concern – sat so badly that a moment later, when it had been replaced with a darkly humorous smile, he could almost have believed he’d imagined it.

‘You genuinely don’t have any control over your regenerations, do you?’ The bearded man asked ‘Unless jejune geography teacher was the appearance you intended to choose?’

An ungracious speech, under the circumstances, and the Master had fully expected a prickly response. Instead the Doctor just looked blank. No, worse than blank, actually dazed.

‘Hello.’ He said, raising himself up as far as his elbows to peer at the Master more closely. ‘Are you the Doctor?’

‘The Master.’

‘Master, Master.’ He shook his head as if to dislodge a thought that wasn’t quite dropping into place. It made his hair – blond this time – drift forward across his forehead in a way that the Master could see him becoming impatient with already, frowning and sweeping it back. ‘No it’s definitely the Doctor I need to find.’

Regenerative dissociation then. Perhaps unsurprising given that he had been mentally linked to a stronger mind at the point of biological crisis.

‘Yes I imagine you do.’ The Master said mildly. It was important, at this stage, to keep the Doctor calm. ‘Do you think perhaps you’d better get up off the floor as well?’

‘Yes, thank you. Good idea.’

He tried to jump up first go, surprised and disappointed when it didn't work and he had to take the Master's hand and let himself be pulled to his feet, still unstable, and accept a certain amount of bolstering up to keep him there.

‘You couldn’t have been a more manageable height this time I suppose?’ The Master complained.

‘Thank you.’ The Doctor said again vaguely, bracing himself on the Master’s shoulder, apparently unaware that he was being gently scolded.

The earlier feeling of wellbeing and fizziness felt like an error now. Clearly he wasn’t much use to anyone if he couldn’t stand up - and how was he supposed to find the Doctor when he had no memory of what the Doctor looked like? Or even why he needed to find him?

He leant more closely into the Master, brow furrowed and guileless blue eyes peering straight into the Master’s own as though he might hold some of those answers. The Master only stared back, their physical proximity surprising him to silence but not discomfort. It had been a while - quite a long while - since the last time the Doctor had been so close, and even longer since he had thought the Doctor just might be intending to kiss him.  As with every previous occasion though, the moment passed without incident and the Doctor looked away and broke the silence first.

‘I know you I think.’ He said. ‘Do I know you?’

‘Would you believe me if I said we were mortal enemies?’

‘I suppose I’d have to.’ Gathering himself up, the Doctor took a step back and held out a hand, clearly rather pleased at having managed to stay upright. ‘Hello mortal enemy.’ He said cheerfully.

The Master took the offered hand, amusement still lurking at the corners of his mouth.

‘Doctor.’

 

‘You remember that of course?’ The Doctor says.

‘If you’re looking for thanks at this late stage you’re going to be disappointed.’ Missy is swinging herself idly in the sling the Doctor has lashed beneath the grating so he can do repairs; feet in contact with the floor at all times, heels clicking down as she swings back, toes pushing up and creasing her boots over the instep as she goes forward. It's an inefficient way of moving back and forth, since she has to both power the movement and circumscribe it, but it is strangely reassuring to see her there, shifting in precisely measured movements, like the pendulum on a grandfather clock. The Doctor sits himself down on the stairs to talk to her.

‘I meant how easy it was to escape the citadel.’

‘Easy for you perhaps. You didn’t have six feet of cocoon-addled Doctor to deal with.’ She backs up though before the Doctor can express his frustration with her. ‘I know, I know. No real guards, no freaky cloister full of frozen monsters, no military machine. The old Gallifrey.’

‘So what happened?’

‘You know perfectly well what happened. The Time War. The Daleks polluting up and down the timestream like rats in an open watercourse.’

‘The past was changed and with it the present, and Gallifrey is Gallifrey no more.’ The Doctor intones. Missy rolls her eyes.

‘Please, spare me the eulogy.’

‘Why do you always have to pretend you don’t care?’

‘Because everything you care about is leverage Doctor. Take it from an old enemy, it’s better to keep the things that can hurt you to yourself.’ She stops swinging with a particularly loud click of heels, presumably for emphasis. ‘And if you can’t do that – which a millennia of data would seem to indicate you can’t – at least have a contingency plan.’

She pauses just long enough to have to cut across him, eyes narrowing. ‘I will admit you’re slightly better at the contingency plan part.’

‘Well that’s something I suppose.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has spoilers for Hell Bent, although still of the it-won't-make-sense sort. Oh and a lot more talking than I expected.

‘Behind the pillar, thank you Doctor.’ The Master said firmly, using his arm as a makeshift barrier to prevent the Doctor from walking out straight into the path of two Gallifreyan councillors in deep conversation and full regalia. ‘Do I have to explain to you again how displeased our people will be with us if they realise you’ve given away your regeneration to me?’

‘Hmm.’ The Doctor mused, still not really listening. ‘I don’t think I like their clothes much.’ Then, after a few seconds’ consideration. ‘I don’t think I like my clothes either. Too bulky.’

He was either too polite or too absent-minded to comment on the Master’s hooded cloak and stained rags.

‘We will both be able to find new clothes in your Tardis.’ The Master assured him. ‘I for one would be glad of a bath as well’. More than glad, in truth. A bath would be an ached for and long denied sensuous luxury. Myriic soap, if the Doctor had it, and water hot enough to turn all this fresh new skin pink.

The thought made him speed up, the Tardis key already in his hand where the Doctor had pressed it on being asked. Bewilderingly compliant, and willing to be led.

A pity he couldn’t be persuaded to keep up as well. The Master suddenly realised he had stopped some fifteen feet back and was turning in place, taking the painted walls and ceiling in with silent fascination. He jogged up though as the Master beckoned him on.

‘Don’t wander off. You’d never find the way out without your memories.’

‘But it is.. it’s interesting but I feel like I’ve been here before.’

‘Of course you have. It’s the state museum. We came here to study some part of it practically every term. I don’t know why. If we needed to study relics there were plenty at the academy.’

It was however an excellent place to hide an old type 40 Tardis with an outlandish façade.

‘Oh I definitely remember this.’ As if to prove it, the Doctor patted the door as he followed the Master in, and stood quietly and without commenting about the dimensional inconsistency, his right hand resting affectionately on the console as he watched the Master manipulate the controls.

‘Do you have a Tardis as well?’

‘Yes, but I can pick mine up later. Mine has a functioning chameleon circuit, unlike yours, so it’s quite safe. Now..’ He was pleased to see the central column rising and falling smoothly, to feel space opening up between his mind and all his fellows bar one. ‘Zero room for you I think. This has already been too much stimulation.’

 

‘Clara told them they were monsters.’ The Doctor says, hesitating after speaking, as though he has surprised himself with the words. ‘Now why do I remember that? Clara told them they were monsters and they looked – quite concerned. Guilty, even.’

‘Oh I’m sure they can see they’ve changed. Not as clearly as us, perhaps, what with their new selves being surrounded by all those other, related, changes, but on a certain level.’

‘And they’re just going to take the path of least resistance.’

‘Well they’re hardly going to tear down the civilisation they have to rebuild the one they only half remember.’

‘It’s just I.. I used to be certain of things. Who you were. Who I was. That however far I ran Gallifrey would always be there to come back to, beautiful and ancient and.. well, slightly stodgy in many ways. That we would have 12 regenerations each and that that would be it. Now everything shifts around and resets like that ridiculous castle I was trapped in.’

‘I thought you wanted adventures. Wasn’t that what you ran away for?’

‘I ran because I was scared.’

‘No, that’s this new timeline. In the old past you ran away because you were bored. Believe me, I’ve been in your head too many times to be mistaken.’

‘Then why do I remember it differently?’

‘Probably because the reason you left didn’t matter to you very much.’ She stops dead, suddenly realising what she has said. ‘And if you are about to make the obvious and frankly tedious inference arising from that last remark I’d really rather you kept it to yourself.’

‘Well then.’ The Doctor puts his fingers to his lips and whispers. ‘To the grave then. Or at least my next confession dial.’

‘Good.’ For half a minute there is a silence and stillness. The Doctor breaks it first.

‘This prophecy of a hybrid.’

‘Oh please. Anything could be the hybrid. That’s the whole point of a good prophecy. Meaningless babble that can fit a thousand circumstances.’ She sighs and shakes her head, exaggerating her disappointment. ‘Which you very well know.’

‘But it could be them, couldn’t it? The Timelords themselves, as they are now, fit that prophecy as well as anything else does. They’re a tangle of their previous selves and what the Daleks have made them, and they’re already standing in the ruins of the old Gallifrey.’

‘You don’t believe that. You don’t believe in prophecies.’

‘You know it’s a desert now where there used to be grass. People are close to starving, out on the land.’

‘Tell me Doctor, are you suggesting a coup? Overcoming the council by force and trying to reinstate the world as it was?’

‘Nothing so violent.’

‘Oh. Pity. It might have been rather entertaining.’


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seem to have wandered inside Missy's head. It's a disturbing place.

The Doctor’s Tardis was rather too bright for the Master’s taste, but the controls and internal schematics were familiar. With the occasional tweak of course, and the odd incongruity like the bentwood hatstand in the corridor, draped with coat and hat, and the full length mirror with the small shelf on which rested – and this seemed odd in a different sense – a recorder. 

The Doctor was most interested in the recorder at first, but the sound it made annoyed him and he put it back. 

‘No, I don’t think so. Still at least I can get rid of this coat and scarf.’ 

Then he took the Master’s place in front of the mirror where he had been assuring himself that this regeneration was not greatly different from his last. A few small adjustments of course, so that those ten or twenty governments which wanted to see him incarcerated or worse wouldn’t recognise him, but broadly speaking not too unfamiliar to himself. 

The Doctor, on the other hand, clearly was. 

‘That’s the trouble with regeneration.' He said despondently. 'You never quite know what you’re going to get.’ 

‘On the contrary Doctor, some of us know exactly what we're going to get.’ 

‘Well good for you then.’ He leant in closer to the mirror while speaking, as if to take in the full effect, raised a tentative hand to his hair and put it down by his side again. ‘I suppose I’ll get used to it. Ah.’ He pounced and extracted a cricket bat from the base of the hatstand. ‘This is more interesting. Needs a drop of linseed oil though.’ 

He seemed to know which room to find it in too, and although the Master knew they should, undoubtedly, find the zero room and isolate the Doctor from external influences – not least that of the Master’s own mind – he was inclined to let it go for now. The Doctor was hardly unwell in any dangerous sense, and he couldn’t say he was averse to his old friend picking up any stray influences from himself. Quite the opposite. 

He could see now that the Doctor was imprinting on the environment as well. Just as events early in his third regeneration had secured the Earth in the Doctor’s consciousness far more deeply than could otherwise be explained, the objects he was finding here in his fifth were clearly being used to help him work through this early discovery of who he was now. 

The Master was finding the process too interesting to want to intervene, and more particularly rewarding when the Doctor discovered a closet of cricketing clothes in the games room and stripped to his underwear in the most matter of fact manner possible. The naivete of it - since he clearly still knew the Master was there - was positively provocative. No-one who had reached the age of majority could possibly be so innocent. 

Except the Doctor, apparently. He redressed with the same brisk efficiency, dusted his spotless self down slightly and picked up the cricket bat on his way out, holding the door for the Master to precede him, all without any apparent discomfort or awareness that he could have asked for privacy at any time. 

He was however somewhat awkward once back in front of the mirror. 

‘Well of course it takes time to adjust to these things. What do you think?’ 

The Master hesitated, wondering whether he could get away with ‘very pretty’ if he laced it with enough condescension, but the Doctor anticipated him. 

‘Oh yes, you said. Jejune geography teacher. Jejune games master now, I suppose.’

‘That’s doesn’t sound nearly as well, but I imagine your appearance could be an advantage under certain circumstances.’ 

‘It’s very kind of you to try to reassure me..’ The Doctor tried to speak, but the Master cut across him. 

‘We seem doomed to misunderstand each other.’ He said, with a (admittedly somewhat theatrical) sigh. ‘It was a sincerely meant compliment.’

‘I don’t see how.. Oh.’ The Doctor suddenly grasped why the Master was smirking at him and turned back to the mirror to inspect his appearance one last time. ‘Curious taste you have.’ 

‘Indeed. Let us never speak of it again. Zero room Doctor? That is where we were going before you let yourself become distracted.’ 

‘Yes, of course, and you wanted a bath as well didn’t you? I do apologise. This way I think.’

 

What the Doctor has never properly appreciated (and Missy doubts would be a kindness to explain to him) is that everything anyone has ever said is in some measure a lie. That words themselves don’t really express thought, but prune and calcify it. 

Missy could, if anyone asked her to, demonstrate this quite easily. Take their recent discussion. Whatever he had or does believe it’s probably the case that the Doctor fled Gallifrey through both boredom and fear. Why not? Neither emotion reduces the other by so much as a milligram. 

The difference in this new reality is in his own belief about why he left. 

Does that mean he was more bored in the old past than the new, or less scared? How would you measure different emotions against one another to tell? They can hardly be placed side by side for comparison and even if they could would a small amount of fear still outweigh a large slab of boredom? In the Doctor’s case almost certainly not, but he may well believe so. The Doctor is ashamed of being scared but he’s never felt even slightly embarrassed about admitting to boredom.

Take another example, a case from her own brief sojourn on earth. A man might go into work every day for years thinking that he should find something else, that he has been there for too long, but because he is working with good friends, make no move to actually leave. 

If his friends leave however, or perhaps something more tragic happens, he might then go. The underlying reason for his leaving will be the same as before – that he has known he should leave for some time. The trigger, however, will be the recent change in circumstance.

If asked he could give either reason, and be perfectly truthful – but also in some measure saying what is untrue, since he will have left some element of the truth out. 

Another (it is best to use at least 3 examples to test a hypothesis). Apparently the Doctor’s small human immortal (he really should stop doing that) has told the Doctor that she believes Missy introduced Clara to the Doctor to cause chaos. 

Now Missy would be the first to admit she generally likes a bit of chaos, but her answer to the question (were the Doctor to ask the question, which he hasn’t), would be that she mostly did it because the Doctor was moping and she didn’t want to deal with him moping. Her response to Ashildur might be different of course, since Ashildur’s theory does at least suggest she appreciates Missy’s cleverness, and that’s hardly a thing to discourage. 

What doesn’t alter is that both these things are true, and at the same time neither are as true as the Doctor would like. He’s spent too long amongst races who like to use words to think, instead of just as coins to pay out the bare outline of their thoughts (since that is as efficient a way as they have of understanding one another, which is frankly hilarious) and have too great a respect for them.

Most ridiculous of all though is their conviction – which she knows her own people, and the Doctor, can’t help but share - that if you string enough words around it the universe will ultimately make sense. That you can hold it up to the light, like a butterfly pinned to a cork, and study both through and all around the thing and calculate some kind of eternal verities from it. 

This is nonsense, and even if it weren’t the butterfly always dies in the end. 

At the base of that last of course, is fear. The same fear that entered her when she stared into the untempered schism. It’s the fear of the shifting chaos, the void that has always been directly beneath their feet (The castle in the confession dial of reality. See, she can do words too, if she must. They’re not difficult things.).

It is a matter of some amusement that to arrange this argument even within her own head she has had, of course, to think it through using words. Like doing brain surgery with a chisel, but if a chisel is the only tool this sorry world can provide then a chisel it must be. 

‘Will I want to know what you’re thinking?’ The Doctor asks. 

‘I doubt it.’ She had craved control once, even though she had known such a thing was impossible from the age of eight. Now, more than a hundred times older than she was, she has finally learned to curb the impulse and settle for a distraction instead. 

‘Italy for breakfast?’ She suggests, and the Doctor smiles because he knows she’s indulging his affection for the Earth. ‘1914 I think. Somewhere prosperous where they realise they’ll have to be dragged into the war eventually and it’s all about to come crashing down about their ears.’

‘Would you settle for 1912?’

‘Oh, if I must.’ The coffee will probably be better in 1912 anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

The bathroom – or at least the bathroom the Master found first – had a claw foot bath and an old fashioned boiler that heated water as needed. There was also the myriic soap, and a back brush, and even some sort of hair pomade that he could use to slick his hair back into place. 

At first it was glorious, sitting up in water that was almost too warm, stroking the soap over his chest to make a luxurious lather and slathering that the length of his arms, between his thighs; sliding down to duck his head beneath the surface of the water, coming up with his hair dripping, laying back and letting his eyes drift closed, warmth and steam coiling around him. Tiredness creeping up, an arm draped over the edge of the tub to stop his body from slipping down.

Patterns painted themselves on the inside of his eyelids, soothing and meaningless at first but swirling, inevitably, into the shape of flames. 

All at once the heat hit home, all around him. Like the stench of burning rubber and wood and Rassilon only knew what else. 

Whichever way he turned, however hard he ran, he knew he was trapped. He ran anyway. Barrelling through a curtain of fire at first and then onwards, trying to outrun the licking, clinging, creeping monster of flame that wrapped around him, digging in past his skin and sanity until his lungs and mind were howling with pain and he crumpled to his knees at last, curling uselessly inwards..

Something interrupted, shook him from his nightmare. A hand on his arm, a voice. 

The Master struck out in fear, and met only empty air, his eyes flashed open and found only a shocked and friendly face. 

‘Are you alright?’ The Doctor asked. ‘I heard screaming.’ 

‘I never made a sound.’ 

‘No, up here.’ The Doctor’s fingers brushed at his own temple to illustrate. ‘Long time since you’ve done that.’ He added awkwardly. 

The Master forbore from pointing out that it had been a long time since anyone was listening. 

‘I dozed off, it’s nothing.’ He insisted. Then, even more sharply. ‘And if you heard that you must have left the zero room.’

‘I had a sudden craving for a cup of tea.’ The Doctor explained. ‘Well I.. Sorry.’ He dithered, apparently more bothered by the Master’s undressed state than he had his own, although he couldn’t possibly have seen anything through the clouds of soap the Master had used. Just his upper chest, with a faint trail of dark hair disappearing into the water. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt you.’

Still he didn’t move, strangely conscious of the muscles of the Master’s wet forearm beneath his hand, the thin film of soap which was also turning the bath opaque and making the only shield between them. 

Not that he was looking, obviously. 

‘You seem strangely troubled doctor.’ The Master said at last, smirking up at him, hair damp and skin faintly flushed from the rising steam. ‘Could you have suddenly remembered the concept of modesty, by chance?’

The Doctor promptly withdrew his hand and drew himself up to his full height with a painfully sexless, neutral smile that made the Master want to drown himself for an idiot. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll go.’ 

‘Wait.’ The Master called after him as he reached the door, raising himself a little way out of the bath to face him properly as he turned. 'Doctor.'

‘Yes?’ 

The Master braced himself. Oh how he hated apologising.

‘If I seem ungracious or ungrateful, please forgive me.’

‘Yes of course.’ The Doctor smiled almost as though he had never taken offence at all. ‘Well then, would you like a cup of tea if I’m making it? I can leave it outside the door.’

 

The café in the small square is familiar, which only confirms Missy’s long held suspicion that the Tardis is possessed of more than second sight and a sense of humour warped to match her own. Perhaps even a lingering fondness for her, however strange that might seem. 

The proprietor is a little older than she remembers, a little thinner. He won’t be here in 4 years and it won’t be the war that takes him, but he doesn’t know that yet. 

They sit outside – the only customers actually at a table - while she makes her breakfast order of coffee and amaretto and whatever two pastries he thinks they’d like best, as much for old times’ sake as anything else. 

The amaretto comes as remembered in its own glass with the small saucer perched on top, and she sips the dark coffee and tips a little spirit in, sips again and tops it up, savouring the burn and the bitterness. 

‘I used to know a man who drank his breakfast like that.’ The proprietor comes back to the door to say. ‘Only ever the one, but strong. He had eyes like yours. Like the sky in the Flemish paintings. A winter sky. A relation perhaps?’

‘Perhaps.’

The man laughs without offence and turns to go back in. ‘I thought so. He would never tell me anything about himself either.’

The Doctor sprinkles brown sugar thickly over his cappuccino foam, creating a small island they can watch slowly sink, and she angles across with her own spoon to steal some of the jam from his plate while he’s occupied.

‘You could get your own.’ 

‘But it’s more fun to take yours, and besides, you like sharing.’

At that the Doctor raises his eyebrow – just one, and more than enough, and she retaliates by placing her hand over his on his thigh oh so lightly, running the tip of her middle finger up and down the Doctor’s own, back and forth across the knuckle. It’s a tenuous bridge, but enough to tease until the Doctor catches her hand in his own so that he can nudge back with his mind just a little harder than she did. 

She strikes straight back with a snapshot, a split second of something so quickly gone that he can’t even be certain exactly what it is about the image that was so very obscene. 

Another image, the breathy sound of the Doctor’s own voice in his last but one incarnation, and her – his as he was then – remembered delight and triumph at being the cause, and Missy has the pleasure of seeing this incarnation's eyes widen and lose focus. 

A moment later and she’s plunged straight into his central nervous system with the ease of long practice, quickening his breathing and heart rate, scattering false sensations like kisses down the length of his spine from neck to..

The Doctor pulls both his hand and mind reluctantly and gradually away, remembering their very public location, and the connection flickers and almost, but not quite, goes out. 

The Doctor doesn’t blush – he’s had bodies that looked as though they would blush at the slightest provocation, but this definitely isn’t one of them. 

He does however look away – anywhere but where she is, and sips slowly at his over sweetened coffee until he has pulled himself together.

‘That was cheating.’ He says at last, when all the coffee is gone.

‘Then you should have expected it of me.’ She stands and leaves a crumpled note on the table. Probably rather too generous, but it’s not likely she’ll have any other use for lire. ‘Back to the Tardis? Or perhaps you’d like a nice long refreshing walk instead?’ 

‘Back to the Tardis.’


	5. Chapter 5

Had the Master wanted tartan or gold braid or a painted silk cravat he would have been well catered for by the Tardis wardrobe. Plain black appeared to be the one colour there was a shortage of, and although he did eventually find a pair of trousers that suited he had to settle for a turtleneck top in slate grey, made of some stretchy synthetic material that pulled over the head.

It was marvellously soft though. He caught himself stroking at the collar and cuffs, enjoying the way the fabric caressed the skin beneath.

Since it had now been a matter of hours he returned to the zero room to find that the Doctor had gone back as promised; reclining on nothing with his eyes closed, a half-empty teacup balanced on his chest, and a teapot and milk jug on the floor beside him. The scent of Darjeeling mingled pleasantly with the scent of roses familiar to all zero rooms, warm and slightly narcotic. 

‘Doctor?’ 

‘I’m not asleep.' The Doctor said, voice languid with drowsiness. 'Just resting.’ He stretched and shifted slowly upright, opening his eyes. 'Oh that’s better. You look much more comfortable.’ 

‘I feel it. And yourself?’ 

‘Yes, I think so. The tea helped. You should have had some.’ 

‘Your memory?’ 

‘Clearer but not complete. I remember you, but I don’t remember..’ He took a few steps forward, tilted his head one way, and then the other, as if inspecting the Master’s profile. Then he literally walked around him to get the complete picture, although that of course was thwarted by the Master turning to follow him, not quite ready to turn his back on the Doctor just yet. 

‘Have you quite finished your inspection?’ He asked at last, once the circuit was complete. ‘And if so may I hear the verdict?’

‘I definitely remember the beard.’ The Doctor told him. ‘And your eyes were blue and then dark and now they seem to be blue again.’

‘Yes Doctor, and may I say how flattered I am that you’ve been paying so much attention.’ 

‘Now you’re teasing me.’ 

‘I may have any number of other character flaws Doctor, but I never tease.’ 

The Doctor smiled a moment, suppressed it, dragged his eyes back up.

‘I like you enormously, but I have a very strong feeling I probably shouldn’t.’ He admitted. 

‘Then your instincts are still intact at least.’ 

‘I did have some questions.’

‘I’m agog to hear them.’

‘Very well. Firstly, if we’re supposed to be enemies, why are you helping me?’

‘I’m don’t think I’d agree that we are ‘supposed’ to be enemies, Doctor. We have made an alliance on occasion. I suggested we conquer the galaxy together once.’ 

‘Really?’

‘Oh yes. But you didn’t care for the idea.’ 

‘Well of course I hardly know myself yet but I’ve got to admit it doesn’t sound like my sort of thing.’ He looked quite apologetic. ‘You?’

‘Oh I’m still trying.’ 

‘Ah. Could this be why we’re enemies?’ 

‘It may possibly be a factor.’ The Master's eyes narrowed. ‘I notice you don’t ask why, if we’re enemies, you have just helped me.’ 

‘Well at the risk of blowing my own trumpet it seemed like something I might do.’ 

‘Yes. I would appear to be walking evidence of the fact.’ 

‘And I think – like you – I’m not completely sure we’re supposed to be enemies.’ 

For a moment neither of them said a word. Just stood quietly while they let that sink in. 

‘Let us hope that sentiment survives the full return of your memory.’ The Master said at last. 

‘Yes. Let’s hope.’

 

‘You let me win again.’ Missy complains. 

‘Well you do love to win and I don’t exactly feel like I lost.’ His shirt is half off, unbuttoned, untucked. He makes some sort of effort to pull up his trousers, but she stops him before he can do it properly. 

‘Honestly. I should tie your hands together.’ This time round though she only says it. This time round she has only left lipstick smears and lovebites. 

Her last self – the more youthful ‘Harold Saxon’ – was a different story again. 

‘It wasn’t just me.’ She tells him. ‘It was you, all doe-eyed with pining and guilt. How’s a boy supposed to resist?’ 

Under the blouse is a fine linen garment – a chemise or a camisole or something beginning with c anyway – that is in theory quite modest, but through which colours and curves can be traced quite easily. Her loosened hair brushes the flimsy, ruffled sleeves that have slipped to her shoulders, and she catches him looking and smirks.

It’s a familiar smirk, despite the altered contours of her face, and all at once the Doctor’s conscious mind catches up with the feeling in his bones that it’s not a different story at all. It never will be for them. Only ever another chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title taken from the Beatles track: 'Hello, Goodbye'


End file.
